Absolutely correct Papa Lazarou.
It's possible that the EU misunderstands how e-cigarettes work. They may be thinking that the cartridge that looks like a cigarette filter is the equivalent of one smoked cigarette, or one serving of a pharmaceutical nicotine product.. Nicotine gum and lozenges contain dosages of either 2 mg or 4 mg. The recommendation is to use 10 to 12 servings per day.
But even a small cartridge contains a vapor capacity of 100 to 150 puffs, which takes the same amount of time to consume as 10 to 15 cigarettes. Dr. Polosa's pilot study used cartridges with a capacity of about 1/3 mil and each cartridge contained 7.2 ml of liquid. The peak number of cartridges used per day for those who quit smoking was about 3 per day at week 4, dropping to 2 per day at week 12
through week 24.
BMC Public Health | Full text | Effect of an Electronic Nicotine Delivery Device (e-Cigarette) on Smoking Reduction and Cessation: A Prospective 6-Month Pilot Study
So at peak levels, Dr. Polosa's subjects would have been taking in 21.6 mg per day in nicotine, leveling off to 14.4 to maintain smoking abstinence and prevent relapse. To match this using 2 mg. cartridges, the subjects would have needed to use 10.8 cartridges per day at week 4, and leveled off at 7.2 cartridges per day to maintain smoking abstinence. That's a lot of puffs, ranging from a low of 100 * 7.2 = 720 puffs / day to 150 * 10.8 = 1620 puffs per day.
Someone smoking a pack a day of tobacco cigarettes would take 200 puffs a day. So at the high side, those who switch to 2 mg. cartridges would need to puff the equivalent of over 8 packs of cigarettes a day. Assuming 8 hours of sleep and awake 16 hours per day, it would require 101.25 puffs per hour to accumulate 1620 puffs, and they would need to be taking a puff every 3.5 seconds.
Bullen, et al, published "Effect of an electronic nicotine delivery device (e cigarette) on desire to smoke and withdrawal, user preferences and nicotine delivery: randomised cross-over trial "
Results Over 60 min, participants using 16 mg ENDD recorded 0.82 units less desire to smoke than the placebo ENDD (p=0.006). No difference in desire to smoke was found between 16 mg ENDD and inhalator. ENDDs were more pleasant to use than inhalator (p=0.016) and produced less irritation of mouth and throat (p<0.001). On average, the ENDD increased serum nicotine to a peak of 1.3 mg/ml* in 19.6 min, the inhalator to 2.1 ng/ml in 32 min and cigarettes to 13.4 ng/ml in 14.3 min.
Effect of an electronic nicotine delivery device (e cigarette) on desire to smoke and withdrawal, user preferences and nicotine delivery: randomised cross-over trial -- Bullen et al. 19 (2): 98 -- Tobacco Control
* This is probably a typo, should read 1.3 ng/ml.
At only 2 mg / cartridge, Bullen's subjects would have needed to consume 8 cartridges per day, which equates to 800 to 1200 puffs / 16-hour day (or 50 to 75 puffs per hour -- one every 7.2 to 4.2 seconds.
If you ask me, that's one heck of a lot of puffing, making talking, eating, and taking care of bodily functions rather difficult to accomplish.
If we work the math in the other direction and assume that Bullen's subjects would take the same number of puffs from a 2 mg. cartridge as the actual subjects did, the peak level achieved would be only one eighth of the level as using a 16 mg. cartridge--0.15 ng/ml.
Anyone would be dead from that. The actual level in the EU proposal is 4ng/ml, but to me this is kind of irrelevent. Wasn't there some study carried out a long time ago that showed "18mg" e-cigs didn't reliably raise blood plasma concentrations of nicotine above the background level? Yet when they tested people who were using them properly they reliably achieved plasma levels of 20ng/ml+. This suggests the results can easily be fudged depending on what the body carrying out the test is trying to prove.
